Today on the show, we'll take a look at why California's flu season is already off to a deadly start. Then, the House is expected to vote on a new farm bill this week, Hollywood Reporter music critic Shirley Halperin breaks down the highs and lows of last night's Grammys, and we take look inside a vintage prop house. Plus, why is US figure skating waning in popularity, court will decide whether Stephen Glass should be allowed to practice law, and much more.
House expected to vote on new farm bill this week
The farm bill could finally get its day in Congress this week. After two years of partisan wrangling, a bill is expected to be unveiled today and the House could vote as early as Wednesday.
The legislation covers everything from crop subsidies to food stamps. Michael Doyle, the Washington correspondent for McClatchy Newspapers, joins the show with more.
California already facing a deadly flu season
Flu season has finally arrived in California, and it's proving to be a bad one.
To date, nearly 100 residents of the state have died from the flu, and officials expect to confirm an additional 51 cases of flu death this week. Compare that with just nine deaths at this same time last year.
RELATED: Flu widespread in California; 7 deaths confirmed
For more on what's happening here in southern California, we're joined by Dr. Mark Morocco, professor of emergency medicine at UCLA and ER doctor at the Ronald Reagan Medical Center.
UPDATE: Tyro screenwriter goes from UPS truck to Sundance Film Fest
Update:
The Sundance Film Festival wrapped up yesterday. Among the many film fans there was a young man named Matthew Hickman, who had written a few movie scripts of his own.
One of them, titled "A Eulogy for Evelyn Francis," was so good, a longtime producer named Cassian Elwes decided to take Hickman as his guest to Sundance.
We talked to the two of them shortly before they left and I asked Matthew Hickman if there was one person in Park City he really hoped he could meet:
"The only one that I've actually mentioned to Cassian so far and I doubt that i'll actually meet him but it would be cool for several reasons is Robert Redford. Because he started Sundance, because several of his movies have been pretty big influences on me."
We have Matthew back with us now, to find out what happened in Sundance.
Earlier:
Cassian Elwes has produced more than 60 films, including recent hits like "Dallas Buyer's Club," "The Butler," and "All Is Lost." He recently decided he wanted to give back by mentoring an unrepresented writer.
Elwes chose Matthew Hickman — a UPS clerk who moved out here from Georgia — to be his date to the Sundance Film Festival, which kicks off later this week. Though he's thrilled with The Black List now, Hickman began by telling us that his earlier experiences with the site weren't quite as pleasant.
The highs and lows of the 2014 Grammy Awards
In case you didn't catch the Grammys last night, we can sum it up in one song for you:
That's, of course, Macklemore's song "Thrift Shop" off of the album "The Heist." The artist surprised critics by walking away with four Grammys last night, including one for best best rap album. One of those surprised critics joins us now.
RELATED: Grammy Awards 2014: Daft Punk, Lorde, Macklemore win
Shirley Halperin from The Hollywood Reporter and regular Tuesday Reviewsday contributor joins the show with a look at the highs and lows of last night's Grammys.
La Santa Cecilia wins a Grammy for best latin rock album
Update:
On Sunday night, the band La Santa Cecilia took home the Grammy for Best Latin Rock, Urban or Alternative Album for their album “Treinta Dias."
The band hails from Los Angeles, where its members got their start singing boleros for change around Olvera Street. We spoke with band member and lead vocalist Marisol Hernandez back in September.
Earlier:
It's been ten years since the gleaming, swooping silhouette of the Walt Disney Hall became part of the LA skyline and it's kicking off its birthday celebrations this Sunday with a free concert just down the hill in Grand Park.
Gustavo Dudamel will conduct a performance by the LA Philharmonic with Youth Orchestra LA and it's only appropriate that they'll be joined by another group that, like Disney Hall, is a true LA original. La Santa Cecilia joins Take Two.
On The Lot: 'Frozen', Director's Guild Awards and more
It's official, "Frozen" is Disney's second highest grossing animated film ever. It passed "The Lion King" with a gross of $810 million in the global box office. Here to talk about Frozen's legacy and other Hollywood News is Rebecca Keegan, who writes about film for the Los Angeles Times.
Also, the folks who write for films seem to have a tough time getting paid in Hollywood. Now they're trying to do something about it? Why's it so difficult for them to get paid? What is the Writers Guild actually going to do?
The Directors Guild Awards were on Saturday night. What's significant about these awards? Are they indicative of anything Oscars related?
Filmmaker Dinesh D'Souza was indicted last week for violating campaign finance law. He's the creator of the documentary "2016: Obama's America." What do we know about the violations?
Could this affect his new movie at all, which is set to come out in July?
Finally, a film that I can't imagine ever getting nominated for an Oscar. Sony is going to be making an adaptation of Sheryl Sandberg's management book, "Lean In." Just a reminder, she's the COO of Facebook. How are they going to turn this into a movie?
Odd Hollywood Jobs: Vintage prop master
Jim Elyea's prop house, History For Hire, is a 35,000-square-foot warehouse stacked to the rafters with with vintage items. Everything from pay phone booths to typewriters, technicolor cereal boxes from the 1950s to eyeglasses from the 1800s.
"The number of items we have probably approaches a million," said Elyea. "We have a barcode system so that we can track things and we found that on a good week we'll send out a thousand to 1,500 individual props."
Every section of the labyrinthine warehouse is carefully organized by category, like a massive department store frozen in time. There are housewares, military items (like replicas of the fat man and little boy nuclear bombs that well on Hiroshima and Nagasaki), and a medical section so comprehensive it even includes three different replicas of FDR's wooden wheelchair in various finishes.
"When we did 'Pearl Harbor', the director knew that most people nowadays don't know that Franklin Roosevelt was a polio victim, so they stained the chair to match the desk he was sitting at and started off the scene where he was at the desk and then there was the big reveal where all of a sudden he wheels out," said Elyea.
Some of the medical props can get a little gruesome. Like the jar of fake eyes, and then of course, there are the medical tools.
"In the movie 'Master and Commander' when the little boy gets his leg cut off, it was our saws that did the job," said Elyea.
There are fees for clean up, props are charged by the week and you've got to be in the industry to check them out. So, sorry if you had your eye on that Spinal Tap Stonehenge for your next theme party. In showbiz, this is the place to go for all your period piece needs, no matter how esoteric or macabre.
"Now we've come across our most rented item, which is our electric chair. In it we've grilled Robert Shapiro, Steven Ray, Billy Bob Thornton, Quentin Tarantino, Snoop Dogg and Madonna," said Elyea.
Madonna wound up in the chair for her video for the title track for the James Bond flick "Die Another Day"
So how do you wind up with a gig like this? Collecting odds and ends from the past few centuries?
"I got into this area I was doomed from the start. My mother had an antique shop and we went out on weekends junking as we called it said Elyea. "So I would buy things and put them on consignment in my mom's shop so I was always doing little businesses."
As an adult Elyea started renting items out of his overflowing garage, but eventually his collection grew so large he moved it to a warehouse. With almost 30 years in business, he's really got a knack for this stuff. He's built an impressive collection, parts of which can be seen in the current crop of awards movies.
"I haven't seen 'Saving Mr. Banks', but we did a lot for it. I'm told that here's one of our tape recorders that plays over the credits and then stops so it's featured," said Elyea. "We're like stage parents with our stuff. We did specialty props for the movie 'Oscar' and all went to the theater to watch it and when the case came on we all applauded and everyone in the audience went, 'What? What is it?' but we were applauding the props."
Check out the other entries in the Odd Hollywood Jobs series:
- Odd Hollywood Jobs: Military liaison
- Odd Hollywood Jobs: US-China film ambassador
- Odd Hollywood Jobs: Dialect coach
- Odd Hollywood Jobs: Music supervisor
- Odd Hollywood Jobs: Science adviser
- Odd Hollywood Jobs: Looper
- Odd Hollywood Jobs: Set teacher
- Odd Hollywood Jobs: Costume designer
Police struggle to piece together events leading to Kim Pham's death
Earlier this month, a 23-year-old Kim Pham was brutally beaten outside a nightclub in Santa Ana. She died from her injuries last Tuesday.
RELATED: Kim Pham Beating: Police release photo of 'person of interest' in fatal altercation (Update)
Trying to piece together what exactly happened has proven to be quite a challenge to authorities. Here to explain why - and update us on the case is Anh Do, reporter with the Los Angeles Times.
Beach battle pits Silicon Valley billionaire against locals
Thirty miles south of San Francisco, Martins Beach was once a hidden gem, known to just a handful of surfers and folks who rented cottages along the shore. Those days are over.
The small beach has become ground zero for a protracted legal battle between locals and one Silicon Valley billionaire who wants to keep the public out. For The California Report, Amy Standen has the story.
Web company helps SoCal cities make financial data accessible
Cities throughout Southern California are making it easier for the average person to find out how their tax dollars are being spent. KPCC's Alice Walton says that's thanks to a move toward digital democracy being led by an opportunistic web company.
Why has figure skating's popularity declined among US audiences?
The 2014 Winter Olympics kick off in Sochi next week, and viewers across the country will be tuning into watch luging, snowboarding and curling, among other sports.
But will they be watching figure skating? Maybe not with as much enthusiasm as they have in years past.
The belle of the Olympic ball throughout the 1990s, figure skating seems to have lost some of its luster among U.S. audiences over the years. Gone are the days of recognizable stars like Michelle Kwan, Tara Lipinski and Nancy Kerrigan. Instead, the three young women currently poised to represent the U.S. on the international stage — Gracie Gold, Ashley Wagner, and Polina Edmunds — tend to stay out of the public eye and subsequently out of advertiser's minds.
"Figure skating has lost a bit of its iconic status, " said Shawn McBride of the marketing firm Ketchum Sports & Entertainment. "We're seeing that the demographic is slightly older than what is most attractive to advertisers and broadcasters."
While it appears that younger audiences aren't connecting with figure skating, they are connecting with Olympic action sports like snowboarding, made more popular through annual, high-profile competitions like the X-Games.
Along with these extreme sports comes larger-than-life personalities with vibrant social media accounts that help viewers create deeper connections with athletes.
"Not taking anything away from the incredible athleticism, not to mention the commitment and sacrifice by these athletes, at its core figure skating rewards poise at the expense of passion," said McBride. "What we're really seeing is a cultural shift among sports fans...with the explosion of social media and the opportunity for a lot of these athletes to take control of their image and showcase their personalities. That is not, frankly, coming through as significantly in figure skating as it is in some other sports."
There are some bright spots, however. Ratings for this year's U.S. Figure Skating Championships are up 40 percent from last year among adults 19-49. In addition, though the U.S. team isn't as major a player as it was in the 1990s, this "underdog" status could propel the U.S. team to push the envelope.
"We as a country have somewhat become almost underdogs, if you will. That's a dynamic that we know all Americans love," said McBride. "I think that makes for great drama and an "us against them" mentality heading into Sochi, the team has something to prove, and I think Gracie Gold and Ashley on the women's side certainly are going to be ready to get after it. We'll see some great skating of course."
Talk to Take Two: Do you plan on watching figure skating during the Olympics in Sochi? Tell us why or why not in the comments!
List outlines which LA buildings are vulnerable to a large earthquake
Earthquake safety is always looming over the minds of California residents. Are we ready for the big one?
Last summer, about 1,500 older concrete buildings in Los Angeles were identified by a team at UC Berkeley as being vulnerable during the next quake. The exact list of the buildings was released recently, and this weekend the LA Times mapped where the properties are located. It's a mix of commercial, industrial and residential buildings.
RELATED: Owner of old, concrete building not too worried, despite earthquake report
Los Angeles City Councilmember Mitch Englander of District 12 has been looking the new information and is here to tell us more.
Calif. Supreme Court rules Stephen Glass cannot practice law in state
Just this morning, the California Supreme Court declined to allow former journalist Stephen Glass to practice law in the state. The decision reverses the State Bar Court's majority recommendation, which had sided in Glass' favor.
Stephen Glass was the journalist who, 15 years ago, fabricated multiple stories, often quoting anonymous sources.
RELATED: Update: Court rules disgraced ex-journalist Stephen Glass can't practice law
Since then, Glass went on to complete law school and has been seeking a law license in California. But the California bar has been reluctant to grant him one, based on his prior conduct and appealed to the California Supreme Court to decide.
In today's ruling, the Court said Glass had "failed to carry his heavy burden of establishing his rehabilitation and current fitness."
More from the Court's ruling:
Many of his efforts from the time of his exposure in 1998 until the 2010 hearing, however, seem to have been directed primarily at advancing his own well-being rather than returning something to the community. His evidence did not establish that he engaged in truly exemplary conduct over an extended period. We conclude that on this record he has not sustained his heavy burden of demonstrating rehabilitation and fitness for the practice of law.
For more on this, we're joined now by Stanley Goldman, a professor at Loyola Law School and a Bar review lecturer in ethics.
'Secrets and Lies': Why sometimes it's better not to know the truth
In the world of secrets, there are those who keep them and those who find them out. Neither is an ideal position to be in, as author Jane Isay learned first-hand.
After 15 years of marriage, her husband revealed a big secret: that he was gay. Rather than allowing that to dissolve their marriage, Jane kept her husband's secret. For nearly 10 years they hid the truth from friends, family, even their two teenage sons.
Jane Isay writes about this decision in her new book "Secrets and Lies: Surviving the Truths that Change our Lives." We spoke with her recently and asked why she made the decision to stay married to her gay husband.